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American Songbook: Redaceted

Plug Your Ears and Sing!

Plug Your Ears and Sing!

old timey style photo of person plugging their earsDid you know the state song of Florida, “Old Folks at Home,” was written for a minstrel show? That’s not even an April Fool’s joke, that’s the dog’s honest truth!

So for this year’s April 1st festivities, I figured why not try to get Florida to replace their outdated song with the Stephen Foster-style song “Plug Your Ears and Sing!” from my latest show and album? Even better, my song is about being so uncomfortable with the history of racism in the U.S. that people don’t want it to be taught in schools in places like… Florida! (and Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, oh there are too many to mention)

So this year instead of swapping the salt and the sugar, or putting the Rice Krispies in the Cherrios box, let’s lobby the state of Florida to get rid of the song that had people “still longin’ for the old plantation” and replace it with Plug Your Ears and Sing! It perfectly sums up what their government wants teachers to do when the subject of racism comes up so it should be a slam dunk.

You can even use the handy poster at the bottom of this page for your socials!

Either way, enjoy the song and video, I bought a cheap wig and a set of 6 fake mustaches for it!

April-Fools-PYEAS-promo-Poster

Accepted to the Edmonton Fringe!

First Fest Is On The Calendar!

One of my goals for The American Songbook: Redacted is to take the show to performing arts festivals and I just secured my first slot! It’s in the Edmonton Fringe Festival, one of the top 5 fringe festivals in the world and the largest, longest-running fringe theater festival in North America. Not a bad start!

Fringe theater festivals are an amazing experience, with theater companies from all over the world descending on a city and filling it with creative energy and a variety of diverse and unique performances. I won’t have to explain to anyone that my show is different from what they’re used to because things at a fringe festival are supposed to be different from what people are used to. You do juggling while explaining particle physics? Great! Shakespearean mime? Awesome! Comedy songs satirizing U.S. history and American culture? Perfect!

The festival runs from August 17–23, 2023, and I’ll update with dates and venue information when it becomes available. I also have applications in with a few more festivals so hopefully this is the first of, if not many, at least a pleasant handful. See you next year, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada!

The American Songbook: Redacted studio album!

The American Songbook: Redacted—The Original Cast Recording?

The American Songbook: Redacted—The Studio Album?

I haven’t figured out the official title but I do know that an album of fully-arranged studio versions of the songs from my new show will be released on CD and streaming this fall! The official album release show will be Wednesday, October 12 at Caveat, and it will be live streamed! The show is going to be fun and I’m really excited that these songs will be able to take the spotlight on a studio album.

I’ve been hard at work getting the arrangements together and I’m having so much fun with it. It may be the most “me” album I’ve done because it’s full of songs about lesser known episodes in American history and it plays around with so many different genres. There’s jazz, disco, heavy metal, Western, emo, and—possibly my favorite arrangement of the bunch—a James Bond style theme song on which I do my best to channel the vocal style of the great Shirley Bassey, who sang Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, and Moonraker.

I’m excited to continue to develop the show and plan to take it to a few other cities and theater festivals in the next year so stay tuned on that front. I’ll be posting a couple of lyric videos starting in late September with a tentative official album release date of Friday, October 7.

This will be my 7th full studio album (along with my live album, an EP, and The Green L.E.D.s album I released in 2021) and I have a strong feeling that it might be my best yet. I can’t wait for you to hear it!

Beep! Beep! Outta the Way!

A little song about Henry Ford

We all know Henry Ford as the car guy, the man who adopted the assembly line, made affordable cars, and whose company changed transportation and manufacturing, but did you know he had some strong opinions about music?

He hated the popular music of the teens and twenties, what was starting to be called jazz. He thought it was crude, vulgar, a bad influence on young people, and he blamed its popularity on a Jewish conspiracy. He blamed a lot of things on the Jews. So many, in fact, that he bought a newspaper and had them publish a weekly anti-Jewish column. It ran for 91 weeks.

Musically the old man preferred the old timey music he found wholesome so he heavily promoted square dancing and fiddle contests. Did you take square dancing in grade school gym class? Thank Henry Ford.

So I figured the best way to make fun of all of this ridiculousness would be to write Henry Ford a 1920s-style jazz song. It’s featured in my new show The American Songbook: Redacted!

AS:R had debuted!

AS:R debut, May 18, 2022!

American Songbook: Redacted logo

The American Songbook: Redacted has finally hit the stage! The show last week at Caveat was a lot of fun and I’m really excited by how everything went, from the material to my performance to the crowd and the all the tech. Performing 11 new songs (with detailed intros and slides, no less) is a daunting task and something I would never consider in a regular standup set. But this show—an attempt at understanding American history and culture through music and humor—is near and dear to my heart and something I’ve been eager to try.

I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who came out the the show in NYC, it was on the later side on a Wednesday night in the middle of yet another Covid variant surge, so I know it wasn’t easy to show up in person. The team at Caveat was also top-notch, from front of house to the tech, everyone there was helpful, friendly, and damn good at their jobs. When I checked out the video of the live feed I was blown away by the quality and was so excited to realize that the people watching the live stream (thank you all so much for tuning in!) got such a great view of the show. If you’ve seen any of my Cover Tuesday DIY livestreams from home you’ll know that I know that tech is hard!

Now that the debut has has debuted I’m excited to develop the show further with performances, festivals, and more. I hope to do the show many more times here in New York, perhaps even an extended run somewhere. I’d also like to take it to select theaters and venues in other cities, and now that I have video of it to prove it actually exists, I’m going to start reaching out to places. If you have thoughts on a venue that could be a good fit let me know!  I’m also going to start recording studio versions of the songs for a companion album. Maybe I’ll release it as a live/studio double album! 

So many possibilities, and the possibilities feel even more real now that show #1 is in the books! Thank you to everyone who helped get it going!

The American Songbook: Rescheduled!

Timing is everything, right? Yesterday, the day before the big show, I felt pretty achy, tired, and had a slight fever, so I took a home Covid test and it was positive. That of course meant I couldn’t perform The American Songbook: Redacted, the show I’ve been working on for about 5 months, tonight at Caveat.

Thankfully the wonderful people at Caveat were very understanding and we’ve rescheduled for Wednesday, May 18, 9:30. All advance tickets for the live show and the live stream will be honored on that date.

So far the symptoms have been mild and I hope that trend continues. If the worst thing that happens is I have to reschedule my show I guess that’s acceptable. I’m really excited to get this new material up in front of people, I’m really happy with it and the songs have gone over well when I’ve worked on them at The Odd Rock Comedy Hour at QED over the last couple of months.

Speaking of which, I hope to be back and virus free in time for this month’s Odd Rock Comedy Hour on April 23, which will be more than 10 days after my initial symptoms from Monday night. I’ll test before the show and if I can’t make it I’ll find a very capable replacement and the show will be in good hands

Take care of yourselves out there and I hope to fist-bump you at a show soon!

RobP

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